What Susan Boyle means for DM

I was so blown away by the Susan Boyle video on YouTube (haven't seen it? Come on, it has 20 million views! Click here) that I feel like there must be a way to link the Scottish songstress's amazing feat -- think you could stand in front of a laughing, jeering crowd (not to mention Simon Cowell) and pull that off? -- to the challenges DM marketers face every day. Clearly, the moral of the Susan Boyle story is, "don't judge a book by its cover." But it's also about overcoming stereotypes -- Boyle dressed like a dowdy, aging British housewife, prompting laughter, but she sang like a young, beautiful songbird to the background noise of jaws dropping.

Well, there are plenty of stereotypes about DM -- that it's only direct mail, and junk mail at that; that it's not creative; that it's "traditional" and "old-school." Of course, DM practitioners know the truth -- that the science of DM is what makes up the "hot" digital marketing of today; that DM encompasses a vast variety of one-to-one sectors; and that today's CMO's do not consider DM to be old-school in the least -- instead, it is appreciated as a measureable, results-driven practice.

It's all about being appreciated for what you do best -- and as you'll see in my editorial in Monday's issue of DMNews, it's clear that today's DM is far from dowdy.

Next Article in Direct Line Blog

Sign up to our newsletters

Latest Jobs:

Company of the Week

SK&A is a leading provider of U.S. healthcare information solutions and databases. As part of IMS Health, SK&A researches and maintains contact and profiling data for over 2 million healthcare providers, including 800,000+ prescribers. SK&A's data supports research and marketing initiatives for life sciences, medical device, managed healthcare, direct marketing, publishing, education and more. SK&A's proprietary databases are telephone-verified twice per year from its world class Research Centers. SK&A enables multi-channel marketing and sets the standard for data quality and reliability. SK&A's customers include many of America's most recognized healthcare, publishing and pharmaceutical institutions.